Two Scenes.
Matters had not been very pleasant in the neighbourhood of Mrs Lloyd that night Polly had escaped by being a prisoner; but the butler had been reduced, between fear of his wife and a burst of passion from his master, into a state of semi-idiocy; while the rest of the servants, after one or two encounters, had had a meeting, and declared—being, for the most part, newly engaged in consequence of the young heir’s return—that if that woman was to do as she liked in the house, they’d serve their month and then go.
But it was on retiring for the night that the butler came in for the full torrent of his wife’s anger.
“It sha’n’t go on!” she exclaimed, fiercely, as she banged a chair down in the centre of the room, and seated herself. “Here do I stop till every light’s out. That boy whom we worshipped almost, who’s been our every thought, to come home at last like a prodigal son—backwards, and begin to waste his patrimony in this way.”
“’Sh! ’sh!” said the butler.
“’Sh yourself!” exclaimed Mrs Lloyd, angrily.
“But, my dear, he’s master here,” the butler ventured to say.
“Is he indeed!” exclaimed Mrs Lloyd. “I’ll see about that.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake—for Heaven’s sake—pray don’t do anything rash, Martha,” said the butler, imploringly. “Think—think of the consequences.”
“Consequences—you miserable coward, you; I haven’t patience with you.”
“But we are old now, Martha; and what could we do if anything happened to us here? Pray, pray think. After thirty years in this place; and we should never get another. Pray, pray don’t speak.”
“Hold your tongue! Do you think, after bringing him up and rearing him as we did when he was delicate, and nursing him through measles and scarlatina, and making a man of him as we have, taking care of the pence, and saving and scratching together, that I’m going to be trampled under foot by him?”
“But, Martha—”
“Hold your tongue, I say. Bringing home here his evil companions, for whom nothing’s good enough; and they must have the best wines, and turn my dining-room into a tap-room with their nasty smoke. I won’t have it, I tell you—I won’t have it.”
“But, Martha, dear, you are so rash; come to bed now, and sleep on it all.”
“Not till every light is out in this house will I stir. Sitting smoking, and diceing, and gambling there at this time of night.”
“Were they, my dear?” said the butler, mildly.
“Yes, with gold by their sides, playing for sovereigns; and that black-looking captain had actually got a five-pound note on the table. We shall all come to ruin.”
“Yes, that we shall, if you forget your place,” said the butler, pitifully, as he gave his pillow a punch.
“Forget my place, indeed!” retorted his wife; “have I been plotting and planning all these years for nothing? Have I brought matters to this pitch to be treated in this way, to be turned upon by an ungrateful boy, with his rough, sea-going ways? This isn’t the quarter-deck of a ship—do you hear what I say?—this isn’t the quarter-deck of a ship.”
“No, my dear, of course it isn’t,” said the butler, mildly—“it’s our bedroom,” he added to himself.
“But I’ll bring him to himself in the morning, see if I don’t,” she said, folding her arms, and speaking fiercely. “I’ll soon let him know who I am—an overbearing, obstinate, mad—are you asleep, Lloyd?”
“No, my dear, I’m listening.”
“Now, look here; I have my plans about Polly.”
“Yes, dear.”
“And, mind this, if that fellow Humphrey attempts to approach her again—”
“Poor Humphrey!” sighed the butler.
“Ah!” exclaimed his wife, “what was I about to marry such a milksop? Did you know that he was making up to her?”
“I thought he cared for the girl, my dear.”
“You fool! you idiot, Lloyd! and not to tell me. Have you no brains at all?”
“I’m afraid not much, my dear,” said the butler, pitifully: “what little I had has been pretty well muddled with trouble, and upset, and dread, and one thing and another.”
“Lloyd!” exclaimed the housekeeper, “if ever I hear you speak again like that—”
She did not finish her sentence, but her eyes flashed as she looked full in his, holding the candle over him the while.
“Now, look here,” she said, more temperately. “I shall have a talk with my gentleman in the morning.”
“What, poor Humphrey?”
“Poor Humphrey, no. But mind this—he’s not to come near Polly.”
“But you don’t think—”
“Never mind what I think, you mind what I say, and leave me to bring things round. If she don’t know what’s good for her, I do; and I shall have my way.”
The butler sighed.
“Now, look here, I shall have some words of a sort with my fine gentleman in the morning.”
“No, no, Martha, don’t—pray don’t; let things be now; we can’t alter them.”
“Can’t we?” said Mrs Lloyd, viciously—“I’ll see about that.”
“But, Martha, dear, I’m fifteen years older than you, and if anything happened it would break my heart—there!” he exclaimed, vehemently. “I’d sooner go down to Trevass Rocks, and jump off into the sea, and end it all, than that anything should happen to us now—after all these years.”
Mrs Lloyd did not speak for a few minutes. Then, hearing a voice downstairs, she opened the door gently, and listened, to make out that it was only laughter from the smoking-room, and she closed the door once more.
“If ever there was a coward, Lloyd, you are one,” she said, with a bitter sneer.
“Yes,” said the butler. “I suppose I am, for I can’t bear the idea of anything happening now. Then people say we’re unnatural to poor Humphrey.”
“Poor Humphrey again!” exclaimed Mrs Lloyd, angrily; “let people talk about what they understand. I should like for any one to say anything to me.”
“But Martha,” said Lloyd, after a pause. “Well?”
“You’ll not be rash in the morning—don’t peril our position here out of an angry feeling.”
“You go to sleep,” was the uncompromising response.
And sighing wearily, the butler did go to sleep, his wife sitting listening hour after hour till nearly two, when there was the sound of a door opening, a burst of voices, steps in the hall, “Good nights!” loudly uttered, Pratt going upstairs to his room, whistling number one of the Lancers-quadrilles with all his might. Then came the closing of bedroom doors and silence.
Mrs Lloyd sat for ten minutes more, then, taking her candle, she walked softly downstairs; went round dining- and drawing-rooms and study, examining locks, bolts, and shutters, and then went to the butler’s pantry, gave a drag at the handle of the iron plate-closet, to satisfy herself that all was right there, and lastly made for the smoking-room.
“Like a public-house,” she muttered, as she crossed the hall, turned the handle with a snatch, and threw open the door, to find herself face to face with Trevor, who was sitting at a table writing a letter.
“Mrs Lloyd!”
“Not gone to bed!”
The couple looked angrily at each other for a few moments, and then Trevor said, sternly—
“Why are you downstairs at this time of the night, Mrs Lloyd?”
“The morning you mean, sir,” said the housekeeper. “What am I down for?” she continued, angrily; “to see that the house is safe—that there’s no fire left about—that doors are fastened, so that the house I’ve watched over all these years isn’t destroyed by carelessness, and all going to rack and ruin.”
Trevor jumped up with an angry exclamation on his lips; but he checked it, and then spoke, quite calmly—
“Mrs Lloyd, I should be perfectly justified in speaking to you perhaps in a way in which you have never been spoken to before.”
“Pray do, then, Master—sir,” jerked out Mrs Lloyd, looking white with anger.
“In half a dozen things during the past evening you have wilfully disobeyed my orders. Why was this?”
“To protect your interests and property,” exclaimed the housekeeper.
“Giving me credit for not knowing my own mind, and making me look absurd in the eyes of my friends.”
“I didn’t mean to do anything of the kind, sir,” said Mrs Lloyd, stoutly.
“I’ll grant that; and that you did it through ignorance,” said Trevor.
“I don’t want to see the place I’ve taken care of for years go to ruin,” said Mrs Lloyd.
“I’ll grant that too,” said Trevor, “and that you and your husband have been most faithful servants, and are ready at any time to give an account of your stewardship. I feel your zeal in my interests, but you must learn to see, Mrs Lloyd, that you can carry it too far. I daresay, too, that for all these years you and your husband have felt like mistress and master of the house, and that it seems hard to give up to the new rule, and to render the obedience that I shall exact; but, Mrs Lloyd, you are a woman of sound common sense, and you must see that your conduct to me has been anything but what it should be.”
“I’ve never had a thought but for your benefit!” exclaimed Mrs Lloyd.
“I believe it, Mrs Lloyd—I know it; but tell me frankly that you feel you have erred, and no more shall be said.”
Mrs Lloyd gave a gulp, and stood watching the fine, well-built man before her.
“It grieves me, I assure you, to have to speak as I do, Mrs Lloyd,” continued Trevor; “but you must see that things are altered now.”
“And that you forget all the past, Master Dick,” cried Mrs Lloyd, with a wild sob, “and that those who have done everything for you may now be turned out of the house in their old age and go and beg their bread, while you make merry with your friends.”
“Come—come—come, Mrs Lloyd,” said Trevor, advancing to her, and laying his hand caressingly on her shoulder, “you don’t believe that; you have too much respect for your old master’s son to think he would grow up such an ingrate—so utterly void of common feeling. He has not forgotten who took the place of his mother—who nursed him—who tended him through many an illness, and was always more a friend than a servant. He has come back a man—I hope a generous one—accustomed to command, and be obeyed. He wishes you to keep your position of confidential trust, and the thought of making any change has never entered his mind. All he wishes is that you should make an effort to see the necessity for taking the place necessitated by the relative positions in which we now find ourselves; and he tells you, Mrs Lloyd, that you may rest assured while Penreife stands there is always a home for you and for your husband.”
As he touched her a shiver ran through the woman’s frame; the inimical aspect faded out, and she looked admiringly in his face, her own working the while, as his grave words were uttered, till, sobbing violently, she threw her arms round his neck, kissed him passionately again and again, and then sank upon the floor to cover her face with her hands.
“There—there, nurse,” he said, taking her hand and raising her. “Let this show you I’ve not forgotten old times. This is to be the seal of a compact for the future,”—he kissed her gravely on the forehead. “Now, nurse, you will believe in your master for the future, and you see your way?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, looking appealingly in his face.
“We thoroughly understand each other?”
“Yes, sir; and I’ll try never to thwart you again.”
“You’ll let me be master in my own house?” he said, his handsome face lighting up with a smile.
“Yes, indeed, I will, sir,” sobbed the woman; “and—and—you’re not angry with me—for—for—”
“For what—about the wine?”
“No, sir, for the liberty I took just now.”
“Oh no,” he said; “it was a minute’s relapse to old times. And now,” he continued, taking her hand, to lead her to the door, “it is very late, and I must finish my letter. Good night, nurse.”
“Good night, sir—and—God bless you!” she exclaimed, passionately.
And the door closed between them—another woman seeming to be the one who went upstairs.